Hamas Said to Recruit 30,000 Gaza Youths into Its Military Wing

Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has recruited around 30,000 young people from Gaza to join their ranks, according to a Sunday report, on April 20. A Saudi channel, citing Palestinian sources, said in its report that most of the recruits had previously undergone training in secret military camps run by the wing. 

The report did not clarify if the training camps were still being held during the war, or if they only took place beforehand. However, the new recruits reportedly lack military skills beyond “guerrilla warfare,” rocket fire, and planting explosives.

Further, the report did not mention an exact timeframe for when they were recruited but is likely referring to a recent period in the ongoing war, which resumed last month following the collapse of the ceasefire-hostage release agreement that was signed in January.

Gaza’s civil defense agency reported that Israeli airstrikes on Sunday killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children. In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah. The figures could not be independently verified and do not differentiate between combatants and civilians. 

Meanwhile, aid groups have recently claimed that thousands of children have become malnourished and most people are barely eating one meal a day as stocks dwindle, according to the United Nations. (TOI/VFI News) 

“Do not envy the oppressor, and choose none of his ways; for the perverse person is an abomination to the Lord, but His secret counsel is with the upright.” - Proverbs 3:31-32